Jack
= Raw Info = NOTE: This is a temporary section, do not remove, reorder or change the overall context of the raw data, just fix typos or make sentences more eligible if needed. NOTE: In case you are feeling creative just write below the raw data, when the overall layout will be settled the paragraphs will be moved accordingly ''' (numbers in "v" in the infobox have correlation to the chapters where the information was gathered from) Chapter 1 He owned and drove a pickup truck. '''First description: A tall white-haired man that had a wrinkled face. He was dressed in old army pants and a fisherman's vest over a thick green army sweater. In his former life Jack was apparently a regular fisherman as noted by Earl, even having a favorite fishing spot. Jack was very elated at the thought of spending a fishing day with his son and grandson. He even arrived earlier then he commonly would, citing that he "couldn't sleep" so he "decided to come in early and set up things up". He armed himself with a large bag, three folding chairs, a mesh net bag for holding fish, a tackle box and two fishing rods for himself, two for his son and one for his grandson, Earl even giving him a discount and only charging him $49.95. The clock showed 04:36 AM by the time Jack finished preparing the equipment at his favorite fishing spot and he noted that his son Kevin and his grandson Jacob should arrived at about 08:00 AM. By the time 08:24 came about Jack already was at his 3rd beer with no luck for a catch. He then finally decides to call his son Kevin to find out why he and Jacob haven't yet showed up. Jack was concerned to hear that the reason they didn't arrive was because Jacob is sick and he even promises his son that he will treat them to a barbeque when Jacob gets better but as the conversation is about to end he hears his grandson asking Kevin if he's done speaking to Jack so they can hurry up or else they'll be late for an appointment with their friends. He feels dejected by this entire turn of events but he comes back around when Earl cheers him up in a soldier's fashion and he returns more spirited to fishing. As he returns he observes that a rod had a catch. Unfortunately, the struggle with the carp proved to be to extraneous for his old body and he had an heart attack. Death by fish but at least he went down smiling. Chapter 2 Jack's Life: "He grew up in a typical Midwestern family in southern Indiana. Fell in love with a girl in high school who he intended to marry after college. In college, he studied Information Technology with a focus on Cyber Security." When WW3 broke out Jack tried to get into the Cyber Security department of the Armed Forces but he was refused to the him being "too inexperienced", thus he was assigned to the regular army. One year into the war his long distance relationship was in shambles, his sweetheart sending him a later of her desire and reason for the breakup. By the end of the 8 years war Jack was a Sergeant Major and after it he stayed a couple of more years in the Army, doing clean-up operations, until the government forcibly retired Jack at 30 years old for being to decrepit. A couple of years and a lot of drinks later his son Kevin was born to a barmaid which he married. She divorced him after 5 years (he worked in Cyber Security) saying the she was unhappy. The divorce wasn't favorable to Jack but he trudged on from his mobile home in the hopes to get visiting rights to his son which he later acquired with great effort. He afterwards managed to sell his mobile home, rent an apartment and a friend inspired him to adopt fishing, a hobby that became his favorite. When Jacob, his grandson, was born it was "one of his most happiest moments of Jack's life." When he woke up after his death he found himself in a place were he saw a giant river of "some kinds of balls of grey gas", some of which rarely had a translucent face on them. He later found out that he was one of them as well, a gray ball of gas that had "the shade of asphalt during rain". He deduced that they might be something "akin to souls" and the color might denote "the purity of one." Jack was pulled out of the river by a dark and four story building large ball that felt evil. It managed to avoid the "guardian of the river", an even larger ball that "shone as bright as burning magnesium", pulling Jack and other gray balls out with it. Chapter 3 He woke up, still as a gray ball, in a room with four stone walls, a stone floor and a ceiling that had no apparent windows or doors, the only other person in the room being "young-looking man in weird clothes, who kept walking around Jack and mumbling to himself in a weird clipped language". Beneath himself, Jack found out that there were drawn weird circles filled with strange scripts and shapes that glowed in a LED light. The young man infused Jack's spirit in a 2 meters tall and over 3 meters long statue of a beast that looked like a cross between a bull and a tiger. A spirit puppet, from what the man said. While in the puppet Jack could not control himself, when Bai Xiatuo's and Bai Shetai's fight started he had to obey and fight alongside the other hundreds of "high-quality spirit puppets". Chapter 4 He has nightmares with his old buddies from the war. Jack could bypass the slave compelling if he thought and convinced himself that the way he interpreted his commands are the best way to serve his master. A indirect hit with the palm from Bai Shetai sent Jack through the air at a speed of 20 meters per second making a deep hole in the ground where he landed. Jack managed to escape by convincing the compelling placed on him, after the puppet was rendered impotent to help Bai Xiatuo, that in order to better serve him it must release Jack from the puppet to return to his master and take another one to fight on the master's side effectively releasing Jack from his prison in the process. Struggling to avoid his ipending doom as a spirit, blinking out of existence, he finds a woman in labor. He fights the spirit that was supose to enter the new born baby's body, a tiny white ball, and takes it's place. Thush Jack is reborn. Chapter 5 His mother carried him tied up like a bag on her back. Jack's new household: An older man that looked like he just stepped into his fifties, presumably his dad, a younger man and woman in their twenties, a boy in his teens, a girl of around ten or eleven, and an old bent hag that looked worse than he used to. Jack understood most of the words his family used after just a couple of months but he refused to talk out of fear of his family and mostly his grandmother that would even kill a chicken for waiting on her when the time to feed the animals came. While he was young, in order not to forget the english words, Jack made conversations with himself in his mind just so he can practice and remember the language. There are two moons in this world. At 1 years old he is named Song Tanda by his father, Song Fengtian and he is giving a noodle test by his parents where he needs to swallow as much of a loooong noodle as possible. He somehow manages to swallow it all and it is said that if the noodle does not break Jack will have a long life. His family is not well off but they aren't poor either. Chapter 6 In his second year of life he helped out, by carrying light pieces of wood, in expanding Song Aolie's newlywed gifted house. He also took this time to study the Raging Ox village people construction technique. He pestered Kong Nuanken to teach him how to read every time he came by their house. Jack has seen very few written words in Raging Ox village. All of them looked like "strange rectangular glyphs" and each of them had their own meaning. Jack notes that the alphabet commonly used on Earth isn't used by anyone that he knows. As he grew older his chores consisted of feeding the animals and taking the Kui cattle to graze. At the age of 5 Jack was almost destroyed his cover when he asked his family about cultivators while blaming Shen Xianshu for telling him they exist. He was beaten and caned by his fearful family, even denying that this is true. Later that night his parents and grandmother discussed the boys "suspicious" behavior saying that Jack's inquisitive nature was unnatural, Kong Ganrong even hinting that the boy might have a demon hiding in his heart. His grandmother notes that Jack never cries, he doesn't talk aloud yet when he does he sounds like an adult, his eyes never stop moving, observing and thinking, she even accuses him that he might be scheming something. His father notes that he hears Jack sob almost every night. After the incident where Jack's secret was almost found he decides to act as much as possible as any other villager while also making contingency plans if he was ever exposed. He stores dried rations in different secret hiding spots and maps out exit routes while also thinking about how he could get his hands on a good weapon. He gets an idea for his weapon from a children's betting game two of his playmates and childhood friends, Shen Xianshu and Song Farong, made to see if they can hit Jack, a bet that is lost. Chapter 7 Jack always bamboozled Shen Xianshu and Song Farong into testing his new ideas or to make them train by promising them "a new game". Although they each had their own complains every time such a mention was made they both still followed Jack's lead because of the challenge and the fact that innovative ideas that he came up with were fun in contrast to the simple and boring life of the village. For one such game, Jack managed to convince them both to steal Xiezhi wool from their family in order to create their new "toys" that were slings to use as practice in throwing rocks. Jack learned how to make string and rope by spying on his mother when she was teaching Song Yuening, his sister, how to make them. Jack usually played with his friends while he was tending to the kui. Jack was suspicious of Hao Tiankai the first time he saw him when he came to ask for his sister Song Fenlan hand in marriage, but seeing her approve and happy about it he also felt glad. He managed to stash away a large amount of wool and a few pieces of tanned kui leather in the kui pen due to the engagement celebratory mood. Jack would smuggle his "ill gotten gains" through a pouch that he kept under his shirt. From the leather, his wool and the wool gathered from his friends he made slings by making wool ropes, each rope made from thinner rope strands. Description of the process of making the sling: "He used a sharp rock to cut the leather into vaguely rectangular shapes and drilled a hole on two parallel sides of the rectangle. He tied a length of rope to each side of the leather rectangle. On one end he made a small loop that could fit over a finger, on another he made a couple of knots that a person could hold onto." Chapter 8 He manages to train his two friends in the use of the slingshot by making a competition out of the game they were promised. He also made a couple of backup slings and hid them in his secret stashes. While he grew, Jack did regular basic exercises to keep himself in shape while he kept in mind moderation, not to overdo it and hamper his growth. He managed to convince his friends to join him in this practice as well. After Jack succeeded in making his first kill with the slingshot, a bird, he motivated his friends to get serious in their practice with it instead of taking it just as a game. When his sister Song Fenlan came back, after about a year of her weeding, beaten and bruised he eavesdrop on her retelling of her story. Hearing, not only what she went through with the monster of her husband but also that, by ancient law, he had claim and ownership of her yet unborn child and seeing that his family would do nothing but advice Song Fenlan to give up her son or daughter away for fear of persecution from their village people, he criticize them in his mind as "savages" and went on to take matters in his own hands. When Hao Tiankai came for his wife at sundown that day Jack was waiting on the roof of his house with his slingshot ready. Before anyone could greet him Jack landed three shots on him, one in his family's jewels, one that broke his nose and one that took some of his teeth, his tirade ending just because Song Fenlan screamed and ran to her husband to hug and protect him. Running away from his angry family towards a marked tree under which one of his secret stashes were buried he stumbled upon Song Farong, which unfortunately, he tried to convince to leave but he proved stubborn and unwilling, thinking that Jack was just playing a "new game", that made him curious. He tricks Song Farong while they are walking through the woods, near a river and ties him up in a manner that he could let himself free but only after some time. He does this thinking that he will be safe enough to find his way back with the help of the village and at the same time, not follow Jack towards danger and unknown. Chapter 9 As he prepared to go Jack saw fire and smoke rising from the nearby village of Fallen Crow, so with fear in his heart, but determination, he backtracked to his new home and what he found was worst then he imagined. Raging Ox village was destroyed, it's population decimated and two powerful forces fighting over their graves and he realized that he could do nothing. So he walked around the village in the hopes of finding those that he cared about, from his home to the village center. And there he found them, his family dead and no one but a stranger that greeted him. Chapter 10 Jack was a beaten and almost killed for his act of defense, an act that Mai Younu, the leader of the two man party, saw fit to overlook and spare Jack for his "arrogance" towards an immortal. When Mai Younu tried to test Jack's talent for cultivation he was startled to find that he could see the strands of spirit energy coming out of Mai Younu's hand. He was shocked that he deemed it necessary to interrogate Jack oh his origin, asking him if he was a demon or a spirit. Jack has a suspicion that he can see spirit energy so readily due to the way he was brought into this world. Jack, as noted by Mannu, has mediocre talent for cultivation at best. After a few more exchanges, he was made unconscious by Mai Younu and taken to the Gravediggers Chapter 11 He mentions, in his dream of a memory, that he was a private second class. It was the first time he spoke to his Lieutenant one on one. Jack is assigned to fly a surveillance dragonfly-like drone by his Lieutenant because of his noted tech skills, to perform reconnaissance because their scouting team was eliminated. Jack is elated to be assigned the job. His Lieutenant means to give Jack the job to film the impending attack on the Jabal settlement, people that were friendly to them, to motivate the military and the people at home and make them understand the consequences of inaction. Jack is shown to be reluctant such a thing to happen but he nonetheless complies with his orders. He was 19 or 20 years old in this flashback. Chapter 12 He was lead around by Du Angliang and saw for the first time Eternal Rest Mountain and it's surroundings. He even saw someone from a neighboring mountain stand on something that looked vaguely round and took to the sky. Du Angliang afterwards led Jack inside the town to a light gray building on the main road of Tranquil Lake Town, the working quarters for the Gravediggers where he could see more then a dozen, mostly dispirited teenagers dressed in dirty white robes. Here he is informed that he belonged to Elder Yu and the Endless Cycle Sect by Du Angliang with a sneer. He was given a work and ceremonial uniform. The work uniform was a coarse white robe while the ceremonial one was made out of better material with a black crest of a circle with a smaller circle emblazoned over the heart. After Du Angliang escorts him where he will work and promptly leaves, Jack is left just with the sight of lifeless workers, trudging along and doing slave like job of cutting up corpses or burying them. The worker Kuang Bindun was the one to take over and show him the ropes on how to do his job. Although Jack saw him grinning, he notes that he couldn't see any life in his eyes. Category:Characters